Biting the bullet and buying a netbook

After months of blogging and thinking about netbooks, I finally decided to bite the bullet and buy one.

Several factors contributed to my decision. A major factor and instigator was that I started having major computer problems early last week. I noticed my computer was running extremely slow and crashing frequently, checked the CPU and it being hogged by one of my programs (my antivirus software, ironically — and a different program than the one that screwed things up before). I deleted the program (screw antivirus software, I don't need it!), and things are back to normal — but I'm now more worried than ever about my computer's eventual demise.

The other reason was because I discovered one of my favorite netbooks back in December, when I wrote my first round of netbook reviews for writers, is on sale at BestBuy.com: the Asus Eee with Celeron processor. I bought it because I remembered that what I liked best about it was that the keyboard and screen size were comparable to my Averatec, which should enable me to go back and forth between the two without having to adjust to the keyboard every time.

I also did some research, and discovered that the reason it felt slow to me in the store was probably because it enables you to set the slower at a slower speed (around 650 MHz) in order to save power when you don't necessarily need the faster speed. With the power save setting being used, the screen brightness turned down, and WiFi turned off, it's supposed to get between 4 and 5 hours of battery power. There are many times when I am just using Word on battery power and could stand to take advantage of that feature!

I'm getting this netbook primarily to be a backup machine in case this one has problems again — or, heaven forbid, dies altogether. I should get it in a couple of days (I ordered it online on Saturday, with 3-day shipping), and I will let you know what I think when it arrives!